Campus Edition (CE) 6.2.2 & Office 2007 Files

Since the introduction of Office 2007, files with x extension (e.g., .docx and so on) are treated as zip files by Blackboard CE. Service Pack 2 for CE 6.2 addressed this problem, but there may be some lingering problems. So please note the following:

1. If the Office 2007 files were already in your course prior to the upgrade to Service Pack 2, they’re still treated as zip files by Blackboard (they actually are zip files because that’s the new format for Office 2007 files—they’re compressed).
2. New files uploaded after the installation of Service Pack 2, will show the .docx extension and work fine.
3. One workaround for downloads (not files that you want to open in Blackboard) is to simply download the Office 2007 file with the zip extension and then rename it with the appropriate x extension: e.g., for a Word document change .zip to .docx.
4. If you’re trying to open the file within Blackboard (using a link), try this. First in Internet Explorer 7 go to Tools, Internet Options, select the Security tab, with the Internet icon selected select the Custom Level button. Scroll down to the setting that says "Open files based on content, not file extension". If this is set to "enable", then IE7 will treat the Office 2007 files as .zip files (what they really are). If this is set to "disable", then IE will look at the file type extension (like .docx) and do the appropriate action based on the extension (that is, open Word 2007). So, we recommend you set the setting to "disable" and click OK. When prompted “Are you sure you ant to change settings for this zone?” click Yes. Then click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.
5. An even better option is to tell your students, if using Office 2007, to save the files they submit in Office 2003 format. When you post documents in your course, do the same thing. That way the file(s) can be opened with either Office 2003 or 2007 installed.